Thursday, October 13, 2016

We have a problem with water in the city of
Newburgh. Like most things of this
nature, it’s complicated but not impossible to understand. As best we understand, there was a chemical
used for firefighting at Stewart ANGB, perflourooctanic acid or PFOA. To the best of everyone’s understanding, it
was a very effective chemical and safe enough.
Upon further review, the chemical was found not to be safe enough and
its use was stopped. Production of PFOA
ended in 2002. However before that
happened some of the chemical was used at the air national guard base. Most of it was caught in industrial waste
retention basins but the belief is that a very small amount of concentrate
spilled into the ground water. My source
is from Public Affairs at the base and they gathered the info from their own
records and various environmental agencies.
I hasten to add that this is the state of current study and is subject
to change.

There is a question as to why the ANGB was using
this chemical. The answer is: it was
legal and the base complied with all rules and regulations that were in place
at that time for its use. When the rules
changed, the base’s actions changed.

Why didn’t Newburgh test for this chemical in the
water? Turns out they did as required by
various rules and regulations and they did report finding it. It was when the EPA changed the regulations
and determined that water quality inspectors should be checking not for 400
parts per trillion but 70 parts per trillion, that the new standard set off
alarm bells. Since then they have been
working to fix the problem including switching the water source for the City of
Newburgh. The city no longer is drinking
from Washington Lake.

Why am I telling you this? The water in Washington Lake is very much a
metaphor for what’s going on in our country.
There are scary things going on that we don’t even know about. There are scary things that we know about but
don’t feel we should be worried about.
And there are scary things that are happening right in front of us that
we just don’t want to pay attention to because, perhaps, we just don’t. Or maybe we don’t want to think about scary things
because we don’t believe them. We
convince ourselves not to believe them.
And we don’t pay attention because we reject the knowledge of others and
just make up our own mind. 70 parts per
trillion. How can such a small amount
have such massive consequences? Is it
even possible that 70 parts per trillion can affect us? How can that possibly be? Won’t it be diluted? Doesn’t that just make sense? And yet, the answer seems to be no. Just a teeny, tiny bit can have a massive
effect. It doesn’t take much and we are
the fools who refuse to believe that. We
are the fools who won’t open our hearts and our minds to the idea that just a
small bit of something can have massive implications.

I feel like one of themes I talk about all the
time is trying to maintain civil discourse.
I try to tamp down gossip. I try
to hold judgment until I hear the other side of the story. My boys are very used to me saying, when
hearing some outrageous claim, “Just wait; there’s more to that story.” And there always is. And I try to listen and consider the
other. Before I get on my high horse, I
try to consider the other. I try to put
myself in that person’s shoes, to see the world from that person’s perspective
and I ask: what is going on that they would say that? What is happening that they would arrive at a
conclusion I would not? And while I
initially might think they are wrong, I’m willing to remain open enough to
accept that they might be right. They
still could be wrong but then again, they might be right. This is a pastoral approach. Listen carefully. Keep an open mind. As we make our way through Yom Kippur, we
ought to work hard, to struggle even, at getting out of our own way and opening
ourselves up to hear the other. We need
to open ourselves up to considering the other because understanding the other leads
to civil discourse. When we understand
the other judgment fades away. That is
not the same as having our opinions change.
Sometimes they will. Sometimes
they won’t. But anger, resentment,
hatred will fade. And that is a noble
goal.

A long time ago, 1990, Public Enemy had a hip hop
song called, “911’s a Joke in this Town.”
You probably can figure out Public Enemy’s complaint that 911 sent emergency
crews to white neighborhoods faster than to black neighborhoods. Now, you can fact check every line of the
song if you want but I had to wonder, what are they talking about? 911’s a joke?
Like everyone else in the country I saw 911 as one of the great public
services this country ever created. Hard
working dispatchers responding to everyone sending help to everyone. I’ve always seen them as heroic. How dare Public Enemy spin such a libel. And that song has stayed with me all these years
because back then I asked, what is going on in their neighborhood that would
prompt such anger? What is going on that
could inspire such frustration? Turns
out Public Enemy was right. There were
issues of delayed response and the black community had cause to be
frustrated. But most people at the time
had the “how dare they” response and very few had the “tell me more” response
that could have determined the accuracy of the complaint.

Today we have the Black Lives Matter
movement. Now, before you shut down
because a lot of you are inclined to do so when you hear that phrase, try to
remember it’s Yom Kippur and join me in a pastoral approach and keep an open
mind. Black Lives Matter started out as
a hashtag, a catchy and quick expression of grief and frustration. It is becoming a movement of some sort and
one of those groups recently decided they would attach a blistering,
non-factual attack on Israel as part and parcel of the Black Lives Matter
movement. This makes it difficult for an
awful lot of Jews and Jewish organizations to be supportive of their plea. Not because this section of BLM cares about
Palestinians. That’s not the problem. The problem is that they label Israel as
genocidal, alone among all the other countries of the world. That’s a real problem and a coalition
breaker. But, for a moment, just for a
moment, let’s set that aside and listen to what Black Lives Matter supporters
are saying. I mean, why do they even
need to say that Black Lives Matter?
Shouldn’t that be obvious? Who
says they don’t? But can you begin to
imagine that someone feels so put upon, so downtrodden that they have to affirm
that their very life matters? Who needs
to even say that? Who needs to claim
that? Someone who feels that others
don’t believe their lives matter.

If this were just a bunch of grumpy folks, the
hashtag would have come and gone. But
when thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of black people start
using #Black Lives Matter, one ought to pause for a moment and ask some serious
questions to understand where this is coming from.

Of course, white people become very pious and try
to outdo the Black Lives Matter by saying that All Lives Matter. Let’s talk about that. If you say, “Save the Whales,” it does not
mean you couldn’t give a fig about baby seals.
It means, we can talk about those poor, sad baby seals being clubbed to
death, sure, but right now, for just this moment, could we talk about the
whales? Yes, the lives of all marine
mammals matter but just for a moment, could we focus on the whales? Yes, white
lives matter, too, but for just this moment could we focus on black lives? Just for a minute? That is all that means.

So when black people say Black Lives Matter they
are saying that they feel that somebody out there, they point to police
officers in particular, don’t feel they matter. Here’s the pastoral approach I
offer you. You don’t have to agree with
Black Lives Matter protestors but you should try to understand their pain. Agreement is more complicated and requires
real data and policy discussions.
Hearing their pain costs nothing.
What is going on that people can even make the assumption that their
lives don’t matter? How have things
devolved that a significant chunk of our fellow citizens feel their very lives,
and hear this, their very lives, their existence as citizens and human beings
just don’t matter?

Do all police officers feel that way? I highly doubt it. But let’s remember 70 parts per trillion. How many unnecessary deaths of black men is a
permissible number before it gets toxic and we should question what is going on
with the police? The National Law
Enforcement Memorial Fund[1]
estimates that there are 900,000 sworn law enforcement officers. Of those 900,000 officers, how many are
allowed to engage in a bad shooting before we get upset? There will always be a bad egg among any
large group. But we are well beyond one
bad egg. How many bad shootings are too
many? How many bad shootings does it
take to ruin the reputation of all cops? We have reached our 70 parts per trillion. It is tragic that we have reached that
number. Compounding the sadness, we know
that of those 900,000 officers, there are, I don’t even know, hundreds of
thousands of police-citizen interactions every day and they all go fine. The police act in a professional manner and
folks are let go or arrested and nothing goes wrong. In the last few months in New York there are
have been police shootings that were legitimate and necessary and no one gets
upset by that because that is just another example of police officers doing
their very difficult jobs as professionals according to their training. Most of the water is just fine. But those 70 parts per trillion, that very
small part must be attended to. It
cannot be ignored. The 70 parts per
trillion that doesn’t act professionally does tremendous damage to black lives,
to their departments, to trust in a city and to their own careers and
future. The number of police shootings
cannot be diluted into something we need not worry about. We should worry. And we should listen to the frustration of those
who feel compelled to say black lives matter.

And let’s remember, the complaints about the
police from black communities have indeed been proven to be true multiple
times. Just this past year Chicago and
Baltimore received scathing critiques and they are not the only ones. There is something going on but if you are
offended by the hashtag, how will you ever learn what is behind it? And we must learn what is behind it for the
sake of civil discourse and care for our fellow citizens. We very much need to pay attention to 70
parts per trillion.

What else is in the news that has a moral component?
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t use Yom Kippur
sermon time to talk about candidates but when I wrote my first draft quite some
time ago, we were living with the fantasy that Donald Trump didn’t mean anything
he said and besides, the argument went, he should get a pass since he’s not a
politician. As the weeks went by, I’ve
had to cut and cut. What is there for me
to say that so many others haven’t already said? All I’m left with is the reminder of the
early days of his campaign when he was playing coy with white supremacists. Now, obviously, plenty of people who support
Donald Trump aren’t members of hate groups.
Obviously. However, those who
are, your white supremacists and the American Nazi Party members, love
him. They feel he is speaking to them
and their concerns and they are becoming emboldened. Now, as always, I stand
ready to try to understand what is behind the hatred of these folks. It’s hard to read their websites or listen to
their interviews but I’m trying. Some fear the loss of Euro-centric culture in
America. Others just believe white
people are superior. I can’t say I’m very sympathetic but I’m trying to understand. On the heels of the vandalism of the Temple
Beth Shalom cemetery in Florida, NY with Heil Hitler and SS and swastikas, it’s
worthy to remember that these people are still out there.

I’m worried about the tone his campaign has set. I’m worried the racists and bigots feel free
to take their hatred above ground. That
will not be good for the Jews, I can tell you.
You’re not worried because there are so few of them? It doesn’t take much to spread havoc. 70 parts per trillion.

This Jews have seen before and we know how it
goes. When the mob feels emboldened to
hate others, it takes a very long time to make it unacceptable once again.

Of course, some of you are awaiting the criticism
of Hillary Clinton. If there is one
thing we all agree on, it is that these two candidates are barely
comparable. It is less like comparing
apples and oranges then comparing apples and pandas. They just aren’t the same sort of thing. Hillary Clinton has not courted white
supremacists. She is not beloved by the
American Nazi party so whatever fears we have over the tone of her presidency,
this just isn’t one of them. Criticism
of her is a policy criticism and that’s not what I’m talking about.

A few years ago, a rabbi in Atlanta made a big
splash announcing that radical Islam was coming and that it was here. Do you remember that? Even reading it at the time, I found that his
passion was notable but his message was routine for those of us reading the
headlines. I’m offering something a
little different. Instead of screaming
about what’s already here like the Atlanta rabbi did, I’m saying, we need to
prepare for what may come. We will need
to be organized to protest and to lobby and to write letters and to insist that
our country regardless of who is president will not be turned over to the 70
parts per trillion who can do so much damage.
The military has taught me that it’s better to be ready and not have to
fight then need to fight and not be ready.
Jews know that you don’t want to fight bigots from a position of
weakness. You want to be out ahead in
that fight right away.

It’s good to know that liberals and conservatives
will find common ground in opposing that
after the election. We will have to join
together to fight this 70 parts per trillion of hate regardless of who wins the
election.

Today is a day of introspection, a day to look
closely at our selves. Few of us are
true sinners. We don’t murder, we don’t
rob banks. Most of us in this room have
committed the sins that are small and ordinary.
We have our own version of 70 parts per trillion; just enough to ruin a
perfect record, just enough to make us feel bad, that we could do better. Today is a day of reflection. It is not a day
to justify. It is a day of honesty. Why are black people feeling their lives
don’t matter? How shall we respond to a
rise in brazen hate? To these questions
we must seek answers without, “yeah but…” without switching the conversation,
without hiding behind something else.
Today is a day of honesty even when we don’t want to hear the honesty,
even when it conflicts with what we want to hear. Today is a day of honesty with ourselves and
with the nation. 70 parts per trillion
is all it takes to destroy something. Let’s
remain vigilant against even that small part.
Let’s be open to hearing what is going on. Let us on this day be willing to hear
something we don’t want to hear and grow from it.

It all began with
my boys complaining and my ignoring them.
They were talking about summer camp.
Ethan went to Eisner, Lev to Crane Lake and they loved their experiences
but when it came to Israel at camp, they both complained. They hated the way Israel was taught. They complained that camp presented Israel as
Disneyland, a happy shiny place filled with goodness and positivity.

At this point, my
boys had been to Israel a couple
times for bar mitzvah trips so they had seen Israel as a happy shiny place
filled with goodness and positivity. But
as is the case for any country, they had also seen some of the problems Israel
faces. Along with the influence of a
cynical father they were a little suspicious that any country, especially a
country in the news all the time, could be just so perfect. And now so was I because while I admit I
didn’t quite believe them, I took them seriously enough to look in to it.

And you know
what? Turns out they were right. We are teaching Israel badly at camp and not
only just at camp. We’re teaching Israel
badly everywhere. We are teaching it in
a way that is turning off most Jews under the age of 30 and probably a generation
or two older than that as well. As we
enter into Yom Kippur with a willingness to be reflective and self-critical, we
need to do the same with how we talk about Israel. The reason we need to do that is simple. If we love Israel and we want others to love
Israel, we need to be honest about Israel

Where to
start? How about we start with the
understanding that not everyone in this room loves Israel. Truth is a few of you do, many of you have
some sort of positive association, a whole lot of you are completely passive
and a sizeable minority of you are suspicious if not hostile towards
Israel. It’s difficult for me to explain
why I love Israel. It’s the place of my
history and my mythology. It is a place
of vibrant Jewish culture that exists naturally and outside of a
synagogue. Knowing Hebrew I have a
thrill using my Biblical and modern
Hebrew for purposes holy and mundane.
And it is a thrill to see what our people has developed, the country our
people has created in just 68 years. I
could go on and on but that’s another sermon -- and that would be the
problem. Just telling you how wonderful
it is no longer cuts it. It is an amazing place and you do need to
go but until you trust me and do that, we have other problems and that’s what
we need to talk about.

The tale of
Israel’s founding was a story so good if it were fiction no one would believe
it. A secular newspaperman is energized
into activism after covering the trial infused with anti-Semitism. Tales of quixotic diplomatic derring-do are
combined with tragic stories of 19th century Russian Jewish farmers.
And then World War II came and out of
the ashes the small Jewish community of Israel maniacally brings in any Jew
they can breaking naval blockades and other skullduggery. And then 1948 came with a war that showed the
world how quickly Jews can go from striped death camp garb to soldiers’
uniforms. What a tale! What a story!
And it’s all true! Amazing!
Jewish kids in America who used to get beat up going to school walked a
little prouder. And then, catastrophe hit. We got too good. In 1967, during the course of the Six Day
War, Israel took over the West Bank and we became military occupiers. Now things got tricky.

At first it wasn’t
too much of a problem because surely this was just the temporary result of war. But as the military occupation dragged on, we
became something other than the underdog.
Now there were Arabs under Israeli military rule not in the course of
battle but day in and day out and these Arabs developed a sense of Palestinian
identity and they did not like being under Israeli control.

And now, 50 years
later they are still under Israeli control and they still don’t like it and
this is where the problem arises. You
can say that the Palestinians have chosen a violent path to attain their own
self-determination. You can say that
other Arab countries have done little to nothing to alleviate their
plight. You can that the Palestinian
Authority is rife with corruption and you can say that the PA and the PLO
before it, having been founded in 1964, before there was any occupation let’s
remember, are focused on the dissolution of Israel over and above solving the
problem of the Palestinians. You can say
all that and you would be right but it wouldn’t matter.

The problem with
teaching Israel today is that we Jews have the hardest time acknowledging one
basic fact. Palestinians are
suffering. Life is really bad for a
Palestinian in the West Bank. Check
points all the time, arrests all the time, work permits restricted or
removed. Harassment by soldiers, by
settlers, a terrible economy. There
really isn’t any justice for the Palestinians.

Jews who support
Israel usually say, well, whose fault is that?
Fair question. The PA has a lot
to answer for what they’ve done to their own people. The UN has a lot to answer for as well. Here’s a fun fact. The UN has an amazing office called the High
Commissioner for Refugees. They have
done tremendous work all over the world setting up temporary housing for
refugees and then, in a reasonable amount of time, resettled those refugees. The High Commissioner for Refugees alleviates
the suffering of people within a reasonable amount of time. But in the West Bank, the UN set up the UN
Relief and Works Agency in 1949 when the West Bank was part of Jordan. Let that sink in. This agency was set up exclusively for the
Palestinians and redefined the word refugee just for them. For
Palestinians “refugee” was no longer something we think of as a temporary
condition of people fleeing danger but a permanent status. When it was set up there were 700,000
Palestinian refugees. Today there are
five million because UNRWA declared that the children of refugees through the
male line are themselves considered refugees and that means that a native born
American whose grandfather lived in Nablus before moving here counts as a
refugee. Let that sink in, too. Generations of Palestinians who live in
Jordan or Syria or Lebanon are considered refugees. This stretches the limits of what we commonly
think of as “refugee” but there it is. We
should know that. And we should know
that UNRWA’s mandate is not to resettle the Palestinians which would end their existence
as refugees. UNRWA has tragically kept
the Palestinians in some kind of limbo, neither resettling them nor helping
them rebuild their lives in the West Bank.
In some refugee camps, there is still sewage running in the streets to
this day. That’s UNRWA’s fault. Many, including Arab leaders, have suggested
that they stay this way as a permanent thorn and intentionally keep the
Palestinians suffering because a settled and satisfied Palestinian is one who does
not demonstrate and commit violence against Israel. You can look it up. But we’ll see why in a minute why that won’t
matter.

Where did these
refugees come from? We don’t talk about
this much but we should. In 1948, during the War of Independence, many
Palestinians became refugees. Some of
them were the elite wealthy who escaped early knowing war was coming. Some were told by Arab leaders to leave their
villages in order to get out of the way of the advancing and presumably
victorious Arab armies. Some were indeed
expelled from villages by the Israeli Army.
It is estimated that 15% of Arab villages were evacuated in this manner. That means 85% weren’t but still, 15% is
note worthy.[1] And then, like in most conflicts, the vast majority
of Arabs became refugees because they were running away from the conflict.

To the extent we
even talked about it, Israel education only focused on Arabs fleeing the
conflict on their own or the Arab nations telling them via radio and loudspeaker
trucks to do so. We never spoke of the
Israeli Army chasing Arabs out of their own villages. First, because we didn’t want to (and it was
an open secret) and secondly, because the State archives held these documents
as classified. But in the last decade,
the State of Israel has declassified documents and Israeli historians have been
studying and publishing these things openly.
So now we can’t ignore it and we should talk about it because Yom Kippur
is a time of honesty and we should talk about it because others are talking
about it. We don’t have a choice
anymore.

You’ve heard of
BDS? Boycott, Divestment and Sanction is
a movement that speaks for justice for the Palestinians but really has as its
goal the end of Israel. Their goal is to
plant the idea that Israel is a rogue nation and ought to be a pariah, that
Israel among all the countries in the world is the worst offender of human
rights. Not North Korea, not China in
Tibet, not various dictators around the globe.
Israel. It would be laughable if
it weren’t working. BDS is making
inroads and they are getting Americans of all persuasions to listen to a new
narrative. It is a narrative of a brutal
Israeli army viciously murdering Palestinians.
It is a narrative of Israel stealing land and houses, of Israel cruelly
working to destroy Palestinian life and treating Palestinians as second-class
citizens. If you are a Jew and wishy-washy
on Israel, there is a strong chance that the BDS narrative has reached you.

BDS often fails
when reason takes over. When trustees of
universities look at the reality of Israel they vote down these calls for
divestment. Outside of the boardrooms, they
are having more success because they are able to take a small bit of truth and
twist it into something massive and our people, our children who go to college
campuses, are unprepared and caught completely off guard. BDS will tell them that the Israeli army
committed ethnic cleansing in 1948. That
is, of course, false but since it is
true that some Arabs were kicked out
of their villages and BDS has no interest in context or nuance, they gain the
ears of our kids. Just as the American
army had Abu Ghraib, Israel had Deir Yassin.
However, the US Army should not be judged by Abu Ghraib alone and
neither should Israel for Deir Yassin.
But our kids don’t know that. They
never heard of the things BDS says and so they can’t refute the charge. And don’t forget, we have taught our children
to care for the oppressed. We should be
extraordinarily proud of how we have taught them to be decent human beings and
care for the oppressed and alleviate suffering.
What do we expect when someone comes up and says, “did you know this
suffering is going on?”

They don’t know
what to say except, and I have personal experience with this, they come back at
their teachers angry and hurt and frustrated.
They want to know why we betrayed them.
Why didn’t we tell them the truth?
Why didn’t we tell them what is really going on in Israel?

And why didn’t
we? They need to know that Israel is
great and the very notion of self-determination of the Jewish people after 2000
years in exile is an awesome thing. And
they need to understand the difference between the State of Israel and a
government of Israel. They need to know
that criticizing the governmental policies of the State of Israel is fair
game. Criticizing the legitimacy of the
state to exist is a different thing entirely.
We need to acknowledge and teach that Palestinians are suffering because
only when we acknowledge that will our children be willing to investigate the
complex reasons as to why.

The enemies of
Israel today are those who are committed to alleviating the suffering of
Palestinians. The real enemies of Israel
no longer come with tanks. They come
with moral outrage. They are the enemy
of Israel because they do not care why Palestinians are suffering only that
they are and it must end. Let me repeat
that. For those seeking justice for
Palestinians, how their suffering came to be is of little consequence. The Palestinians are suffering, Israel is
maintaining a military occupation, end of story. Why Israel maintains a very tough occupation
is of no interest to them, only that it does.
That it is in response to violence taking the place of diplomacy, that
without the wall or fence Israelis would be murdered daily, that suicide
bombings are just not acceptable to Israel and that Israel maintains the
responsibility to keep its citizens safe from being hacked to death with a cleaver
is of no interest to those laser focused only on the suffering itself and the
moral outrage against this suffering translates as a desire to see the end of
the State of Israel.

On Yom Kippur, a
day of introspection, we should teach Israel in a way that acknowledges some
responsibility for the suffering of the Palestinians or we will lose the
support of those who weep for the pain the Palestinians truly feel, those good
souls who don’t like to see suffering, like for instance, our children and a
lot of you. We need to be honest that
the current Israeli government has a settlement policy that little by little
removes the chances of a State of Palestine from ever being realized. When you look at the map you see a land mass
that looks like Swiss cheese. No country
can be formed out of this and we need to acknowledge what is happening because
the BDS people find our kids and adults and scream how Israel, the Jews, are
the ones who are no partner for peace, that the Palestinians just want a
country and it is the Israelis are uninterested in two states living
peacefully.

You can say it is
for security and you can say it is for this reason and that reason and you
might be right but the bottom line is that the policy of the Israeli government
is making the prospect for two states a diminishing hope. If the idea of two states goes away then there
will be a catastrophe. Palestinians will
either have to be given citizenship in which case they could vote Israel out of
existence in a couple decades or they will have to be occupied by the military
forever and the military will have to use strong and brutal methods to keep
down the resistance. That is how it
works. A single state can either be
democratic or Jewish but it can’t be both.
Only two states will allow Israel to be Jewish and democratic. Israelis
talk about this all the time. We have to
talk about this, too.

There is a new
approach to teaching Israel. It is an
approach of honesty. It is an approach
that recognizes the grievances of the Palestinians and doesn’t pretend they
don’t exist. The new approach is to be
honest with ourselves and acknowledge that Israel is no longer the little
underdog but a mighty force. The new
approach does not absolve the Palestinians from their own misery. It does not absolve the neighboring countries
who, did you know, have laws that forbid Palestinians from full employment and
even citizenship regardless of how long they’ve been in those countries. The misery of Palestinians is real and hardly
only Israel’s fault. But for too many of
us, we were never taught that their misery was even real and so when learning of
it and being told it’s all Israel’s
fault, we have very little to say. We
just don’t know enough because we were never taught the whole truth.

The new approach
is an honest approach, a fuller approach.
Mind you, some of those who weep for the suicide bombers whose mothers
give proud interviews praising the death of their children in the service of
killing Jews, some of them could stand to be more self critical as well. Seeing Palestinians as innocents is as
foolish as thinking Israel is perfect.
They need to be reflective and honest as well. But for now, since it’s Yom Kippur, it’s our
turn for reflection.

Let’s be honest
and talk about Israel honestly. Let’s
not get sucked in to the claims of our haters but let’s teach ourselves to
understand what they are talking about.
Let’s teach ourselves to be sympathetic because suffering is suffering
and no decent person can just ignore that.
Let’s teach ourselves not only the gloriously uplifting Israel -and it
is gloriously uplifting- but also the trials and tribulations a real country
endures. And let’s teach ourselves to be
honest so that we can understand the difference between legitimate criticism
and straight up anti-Semitism. But if we
are not honest with ourselves we will never be able to do that.

And finally, let’s
commit to getting ourselves to Israel.
Go see it for yourself. If you
are ready, we could have a trip in two years, plenty of time to prepare and
save up. We can hear a variety of voices
and meet a variety of people. We can do
it if we’re brave and honest. Let’s be
brave and honest.

There’s a lot of
preparation for Rosh Hashana that we, the staff and Board and volunteers and I
do for you. And every year, as part of my preparations I remember what you do
for me.

When I am
preparing, I know I am preparing for a big crowd and I’m very mindful of
that. I want to respect how everyone
comes out for Rosh Hashana. I’m always astonished that while we have so many
fun, uplifting things going on in the synagogue week in and week out that you
miss, you’re always here for this week; you come out for the most serious week. It always humbles me. Because so many of you are here, I am always
on the lookout to understand why and what motivates you. I know that guilt motivates some people. I think that is a terrible motivator but for
some people it works. But beyond guilt,
what else is going on?

Let’s see if we
can talk about what is happening here so that we can all understand better why we
all attend and maybe we can encourage those folks who don’t to come back. I’m going to offer a few ideas I’ve been
learning.

First off, I’m
thrilled and amazed that you’re here because this, gathering here, is a huge
act of faith. We arrive dressed up
anticipating -what exactly?-
something. Maybe spiritual
uplift, nostalgic warmth, theological challenge, personal growth, personal ethical
challenge or something else. There are
many reasons. What an act of faith that
is. You come looking for something and
you have no guarantee it will happen.
Yes, you’ve done this before but past performance can never be a guarantee
of future returns so there is an act of faith here. I’ve been reading a series of Talmudic lectures
by Emmanuel Levinas.[1] In one of them he speaks about prayer and
Jewish life as similar to the artistic impulse.
Just as an artist doesn’t really know what the end product will be, he
proceeds anyway. Indeed, the artistic
impulse, this desire to create something is simply that: a desire. It is inchoate, unformed until the first
sketches are made and then the work begins not on the finished product but what
will become the final form for no
artistic act ever comes out fully formed at the very first moment. The final form is the artist’s play between
the intangible idea and the concrete world.
So it is with us.

We come here
looking for something, something different to each one of us, yes, but
something. We want something and we are
brave enough to come here and create it.
It starts out as a vague idea and will become something by the end. Just what, we don’t quite know but we are
here to create it all the same.

As I mentioned
last night, the new machzor is designed to allow you to have that creative
space. Different readings, different
styles, different theologies all in one book in the effort to allow you to find
the words that speak to you and your unique spirituality.

Here’s another
reason I suspect you’re here and a good example of the way our machzor works. Turn to page three, if you will. You’ll see that page three is in blue. That is a sign that it is for personal
reading, personal study. As you’ve seen this
morning there are times when you may prefer to linger on a page or skip
ahead. You may even find it more
uplifting and rewarding to ignore the rabbi’s sermon and find passages that
speak to you more. I’m okay with that.

On page three
you’ll see a text from the Roman era with commentary from around the 6th
century followed by medieval commentary followed by words from the 20th
century. This is a conscious attempt to
bring in a wide range of voices. And
what does this text say? It begins with
the quote from Mishna, “On Rosh Hashana all the inhabitants of the world pass
before God like b’nai maron.” I think we
all understand that Rosh Hashana is the beginning of the ten days of repentance
and that we appear before God but what are b’nai maron? The Talmud helpfully tells us that in
Babylonia it was pronounced “amarna” not “maron” and that someone said it was
like the ascent of Beit Maron and somebody else said, no it means like soldiers
in King David’s army.

Okay,
perfect. Makes more sense. Not really.
So we go to Rashi, a famous commentator from France who is actually helpful. Amarna has something to do with sheep passing
through a small gap to be counted one by one.
The ascent of Beit Maron was very narrow and so walkers went one by one. And David’s army? Here Maron means something to do with
lordship and David’s soldiers passed one at a time to be counted. Three metaphors. You are sheep being cared for and counted
lovingly, every last one. You are hikers
making your way on an arduous narrow path one by one, but determined. You are soldiers, ready for battle, filled
with responsibility and each single soldier important and accounted for.

Our final
commentator points out that you can choose your metaphor but the bottom line is
this: each one of us is important, each one of us is accountable. As we pass through these days, there is no
hiding. We, each one of us, is seen and
counted and judged and we alone are responsible for our actions.

Why are you
here? Because you are brave enough to be
counted. Because you who might tremble
at your own honesty say, I have done good and I have done wrong and I am
prepared to acknowledge that. You will
not hide. You are willing to make that
lonely journey on that arduous path. You
are ready to be acknowledged and prepared to fight the wrongs you have
done. You are ready to know that in the
end, after 10 days, you will be cared for like an innocent little lamb. That is why you are here. Because you are strong and you are honorable
and you will admit fault with a brave face and not be the coward who runs from
this battle.

But wait, there’s
more. It turns out that you are not
alone. You are with us. We are all here together. In Torah study, we’ve been reading about King
David and King Solomon. One of our texts
for study is Me’am Loez, an 18th c. commentary coming out of
Turkey. There is a comment appearing as
Solomon dedicates the Temple in Jerusalem.[2] In his dedication he asks God to listen to
the prayers of the community. That’s
fine but the question is raised: what about the prayers of the individual? Well, according to Me’am Loez, there is a
hierarchy. Prayers for the entire
community have more merit before God than prayers for the individual. In part, I suspect, because they are not selfish
prayers but also, Meam Loez tells us, that when you pray for the whole
community, you are including some very good, top notch people there. You include many righteous people and the
prayers that include the righteous are difficult for God to ignore. And even if you did not have righteous people
among you, surely you have some very good people among you and those people
with their ordinary good deeds become a very powerful petition before God. God cannot ignore so many good deeds among
the community and therefore cannot ignore the prayers that arise from the
people who have done those good deeds.
So, Meam Loez teaches, if you want to pray for health, pray for your
health and the health of the
community. If you want to pray for
strength, pray for your strength and
the strength of the community. Together,
we are more powerful and God cannot resist our prayers. Mind you we don’t always get them answered as
we want but that’s another sermon. For
now we understand that God will listen to our prayers because God cannot ignore
the community. Just dwell on that
teaching for a moment. We, all of us
together, determine God’s actions. We
insist God hear us; a Jewish notion that we are not powerless during these
days. Humble, yes, but not weak.

Why are we
here? Because together we are
powerful. While all of us have made
mistakes, we have also done good deeds and God cannot ignore that. Alone, you’re on your own. Alone you take a chance but together? We’ve got your back. Together we have the strength to stand before
God, confess our sins, beat our chests and yet know that we are not being left
out to dry. Together and only together,
we get a fair hearing from God. As for
ourselves, as individuals, would we have the discipline, the strength of
character to have a ten-day period of introspection? Few of us would. But together, together we agree to these
days. Together we accept our ancient
practice. Together we will make it through
these days and what’s more we’ll celebrate them. Together we sing the songs, read the prayers,
reflect on the readings in our machzor.
Together we can get that done and only together and that’s why you are
here.

A pitch for one
more thing we can do together, alone.
You all have cards promoting the 10 Q project. This is something you sign up for online and
each day you receive an email with a thought-provoking question. As we enter in to these ten days of
reflection, here is a chance to reflect privately, together. You answer the questions privately and after
Yom Kippur they are sealed away. Next
Rosh Hashana you’ll receive your answers back.
This is a wonderful chance to join in a communal effort of tens of
thousands but in your own way.

We come together
to celebrate the new year in our own way together. We have a machzor that has us all enjoying
the same tefillot but in our own way reading what we want to read. Why are you here? Because you are an individual and part of a
community and there is no better place to be than with your own thoughts
amongst your people and your family and your friends. Shana tova.
A very good year to you and to us all.
May we all be blessed to step out of this sanctuary feeling refreshed
and renewed and strong ready to face these next days.

Shana tova! A good year to you. Shana tova metukah! A sweet new year to you. I hope you enjoy the honey to start us off on
a sweet note.

One of the joys of
Rosh Hashana is celebrating the new with the old. That passed down brisket recipe. Gathering with friends and catching up with
family. Opening up the good old red
Gates of Repentance. But not this
year. This year, along with the
familiarity of the tried and true, we have a new machzor, Mishkan
Ha-nefesh. Let’s talk about it and let’s
start with those two words: new machzor. First, a little history.

Because you can’t
fit everything in one volume, synagogues always had two prayer books. One would be the siddur with Shabbat and
daily prayers in it. The other would
have all the prayers for the yearly cycle of annual holidays and that word,
cycle, is translated as machzor. At some
point publishers changed it up. The main
siddur now has Shabbat, daily and holiday prayers and the machzor is the
specialty item with just the High Holidays.
The “cycle” book –machzor- is now only used once a year. Waddayagonnado?

New is the other
word. New is a word both beloved and
feared. Some people enjoy the novelty of
new things and some people like things the way they’ve been. I would guess this is especially true for
those people who only come here once or twice a year: you’re looking for the tried
and true, the comfortable and familiar.
And who can blame you? We all
love that the High Holidays repeat so many favorite foods and melodies and
prayers and themes. I know I look
forward to that. Still, sometimes, it’s
good to have something new.

The red covered
Gates of Repentance first came out in 1975.
Think about that. 1975. Where were you in 1975? Aside from family members or an original Born
to Run concert t, what else is still in your life from 1975?

The innovation of
that machzor was a break from the “thee and thou” style of the Union Prayer
Book and brought Chaim Stern’s glorious poetry in prose that carried us on a
dreamy journey through the days. But,
styles change, people change, the Jewish community changes. Like haircuts from 1975, that machzor had
fallen out of date. What is never out of
date is the fact that although we strive for the best, inevitability we will, from
time to time, fail.

Now, one person
sitting around for a couple hours thinking about personal failures is a
psychological concern. A couple hundred
people doing it together, however, is a healthy expression of personal and
communal accountability. To do that, to
have that personal and communal accountability, we need a guidebook that will
help us. This is our machzor. More than our Gates of Repentance and UPB,
this machzor is designed to highlight and encourage both the communal and
personal experience.

Why don’t you pick
it up while I’m talking? The first
thing you’ll notice is the two page layout on most of the pages. The traditional prayers and a faithful
translation are on the right. Alternative
expressions of the theme of that prayer are on the left. You’ll also notice that there is often more
than one interpretive expression on the left.
And perhaps you’ve noticed some interesting notes along the bottom. In a few places you’ll find a page with a
blue background. This isn’t liturgy as
much as background information for the section it precedes.

And now you’ve probably stopped listening to
me because you are looking at all of the material. And that
is by design. Gone are italics and
instruction. The rigor of when you speak
and when you don’t speak are gone. The
editors actually hope that as we say our prayers, as the cantor sings the
melodies, that you will feel free to explore the text, dwell on the text. The goal is that you follow along but also
drift away. The goal is that you read
those things that speak to you. There is
too much in this machzor and that is
by design. If we want to be mindful of
the amount of time we gather for each service, and I am very mindful of that, then we can’t, we must not read everything
from the bima. That leaves you with the
space to read it yourself, if you wish.
Read the blue pages; dwell on a poem we just read or on some prose we
didn’t read. We’ll all catch up together
at some point.

You may also
notice that some of the left side readings will be contradictory. The editors call it integrated theology. It is an attempt to bring in a variety of
ideas and theologies to capture a sense of where Reform Jews are. We don’t all understand our heritage the same
way, we don’t all understand God the same way.
And a lot of Reform Jews, being the rationally educated people we are,
have problems with the very idea of God.
There are a number of readings that speak to that. Some I’ve chosen for us to read aloud, some
are left for you to discover.

Bottom line, keep
an eye out for the integrated theology and mull it over. Do you appreciate the opposing ideas? Do you find them helpful for your own sense
of spirituality? And, take note, there’s
more science brought in than ever before in a Reform Movement machzor. The Reform Movement has no conflict between
religion and science and we tend to be baffled by the people who do. Science tells you how, faith tells you why,
religion is the attempt to figure out what to do with it. No problem.
So if you know of someone who just can’t abide doing that religion
stuff, have we got a machzor for you.
And let me also say, rational science minded people also make mistakes
and hurt others. The idea of taking some
time off to reflect, admit error and plan for a better tomorrow is hardly in
conflict with science. Reflection isn’t
all that empirical, I know, but then again, neither is hubris. No one is beyond needing a little teshuva in
his or her life.

Back to the
machzor. The biggest change is the
shofar service. The shofar service
tomorrow has always been in three parts.
Mallchuyot speaks to the theme of God’s kingship, a primary theme for
the day. Zichronot is about God
remembering and then Shofarot has the theme of the shofar itself. These three were always together and are always
a highlight. Adults look forward to the
sound. Parents bring their children in
to see it. Because it’s a great moment,
the editors of the machzor decided to break it up and spread the three sections
throughout the morning. Sounding the
shofar at three different times allows the flow of the morning to have more
peaks and valleys. Pay close attention
tomorrow and you’ll see that Malchuyot comes in after the declaration of God’s
kingship, Zichronot after the Torah readings that feature God remembering and
Shofarot coming towards the end as another aural and visual crescendo before
the prayers resolve and we end our tefillot.

As I’ve tested
pilot versions, participated in mock services, and sat in on feedback sessions,
I’ve enjoyed the freeing aspect of the new machzor. Secular culture prizes a more DIY approach
and doesn’t care for one size fits all.
The internet has made freedom to follow one’s own path so second nature
that it seems odd to me when I can’t rewind the radio. We have grown accustomed to letting ideas
lead us to wherever we wish to go. This
machzor reflects that by having us all be together but not always on the same
page and I hope you’ll embrace that.

I’m hoping for a
second benefit as well. The old machzor,
because it was strictly uniform, had turned in to a bit of a slog. We read, we sang, we read, we sang. Sometimes the glorious themes of a prayer
were obvious, sometimes not so much. I’m
hoping the new machzor helps us feel more deeply the themes of the holiday. One theme is just the exuberance for the
start of the new year. New school year,
new fiscal year, new football season, autumn leaves, a joyful or not so joyful
conclusion to the baseball season. A new
Jewish year celebrates coming together with friends and family and celebrating
another year, another chance to do great things.

Another theme is
recognizing God’s kingship which is designed to bring humility. If we accept the metaphor of God as the king
and ourselves as the subjects, doesn’t a loyal subject want to please the
king? Doesn’t the simple man or woman
want to present him or herself as best we can to the monarch? Imagine the 90 year old Queen Elizabeth
II. Americans aren’t supposed to even like
the concept of royalty but given the chance to meet the queen, we all get wobbly
knees. Don’t even get me started what we
would do before William and Kate. We
want to dress up, present ourselves well.
Inform them of the best we can be, give them a tour of our town, our
home which has been cleaned and polished to make a good presentation. Do we think Queen Elizabeth doesn’t know that
our kitchens can be messy, that our towns can have a bit of litter? Of course she does. It is not the perfection she seeks but rather
that we aspire to be the best we can be, that we make a good showing, that we
say, here are my goals and I work every day to make them real not just on this
day but every day. Thus it is before the
very King of Kings on Rosh Hashana.

This machzor is
designed to help us identify and embrace those themes and make them our own.

This new machzor
wants to remind us that Rosh Hashana is joyful; it is a day captioned #goals. It is not a sullen day to feel bad but a day
of “inspo” as the kids say. #be a better
person. #don’t be such a jerk. #life is good. #you got this. #take the day off and focus. This new machzor is a corrective to that feeling
of laborious page turning. The new
machzor hopes to inspire you to find joy in the day beyond our time in this
room. The day is yours, a gift of our 4000
year-old heritage so take the day off.
Take control of your life and join your family and friends. Come to Tashlich down at the river, make
bubbie’s secret brisket recipe, join us on our hike tomorrow. This year it’s very easy, a walk along the
river. But with us on the hike or not, just
spend time with family and friends and embrace the energy of a new year. If you haven’t figured out, I’m not big on
guilt but I am big on you taking advantage of the best Jewish living has to
offer you. It’s there. It’s at your feet. Just pick it up. It’s a new year.

A new year. What will you do with it? What will you accomplish? What will you get done? Just imagine the possibilities. On Yom Kippur we’ll talk about the rough
stuff of apologizing and feeling bad about mistakes we’ve made. Can’t be avoided but for now we
celebrate. We have a new year ahead of
us, an uplifting, bracing story told in our prayers and a new machzor to bring
those ideas to you. I hope you’ll be
open to the change and embrace the vision of our new machzor and embrace the
joy of this uplifting day.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

One of the great High Holidays pieces is
Shema koleinu. The arrangement is by Max
Helfman, a very creative soul who taught for a time at our Reform Movement
seminary and died in 1963. The words we
are about to read are on page 336: “Hear
our voice, Eternal God; have compassion upon us and with that compassion accept
our prayer. Help us to return to You,
God, then truly shall we return. Renew
our days as in the past.”

Let’s look at this for a moment. Perhaps just reading it, the tone seems calm,
bland even. In truth, however, the
grammar is all in the imperative. We are
imploring, no actually, we are demanding of God what must be done. “Hey,” we shout, “I took off from work. I dressed up.
I’m here. God! Here our voice! I did not come here to leave empty handed. Have compassion upon us!” It’s all very much a demand almost chutzpadik. And the music adds to this urgency, this
intensity. It builds and builds and
builds until the cantor comes out practically screaming for God to hear our
voices. It seems polite in the English
but it’s all very demanding in the Hebrew.

Here’s how it sounds.

What a strange experience this yelling at
God, this notion that we say, “You have to do this.” Let me just say, this is very Jewish, very
much our way. Our very name, Israel,
means struggles-with-God. Our Torah is
filled with stories of loyalty to God and then ignoring God and then fighting
with God. We are not a passive
people. We are not just prostrating
ourselves before the Lord on High without a good argument about it first.

This dialogue with God speaks to the
dynamic of Yom Kippur. Coming from a
staid, rational Reform Movement, we are very passive. We sit.
We listen, we read. We make our
way through the liturgy well enough. But
the words themselves speak to grander drama.
There is shouting and demands. There
are also modest moments of humility where we lay ourselves bare, opening
ourselves to the deepest criticism. There are moments of apology so moving we are
reduced to tears. The liturgy of Yom
Kippur is a script of a day long drama filled with anguish. This is why Yom
Kippur for many is so exhausting. It is
hours and hours of arguing, discussion, bargaining, yelling, listening.

Again, the founders of Reform, in their
quest to fit in and not be as emotional as our eastern European
co-religionists, quieted the proceedings down but the storyline is still there.

I think that storyline can draw us in
even if we have questions about God.
There are Jews who just don’t believe in God and there are many more
Jews who have a difficult time with the anthropomorphized God we meet in the
machzor. To this I say, give yourselves
over to the story and understand the drama.
Don’t worry too much about the way the characters are drawn. Down in New York on Broadway, thousands of
people each week are moved by the drama taking place amongst cholera and
battlements in the streets of Paris and the story isn’t even true. If they can give themselves over to that
fiction because they understand the point of the tale is the point, we can give
ourselves over to this drama as well.

This dialogue with God, this yelling at
God is all part of the contortions we go through to make Yom Kippur not
be passive, not to rely on the grace of some higher power. Listen, we demand of that higher power,
listen we demand of our inner psyches, have compassion upon us! Accept my prayer! Accept my sincere efforts! Help us to return to You! Some of us open ourselves up to God to care
for us and some of us in the comfort of the therapist’s office implore our
inner selves to be more kind to us, we struggle to give ourselves permission,
to let ourselves off the hook, to force ourselves to acknowledge fault. Who knows where these arguments really take
place: with God, with our psychological
makeup, with some combination of the two?
Regardless, the battle is joined.
Let the drama commence.

What a curious thing shema koleinu
is. What a strange thing to ask and
demand of God to be compassionate? We
are distant from God because we have erred; we have slipped from the right
path. By all rights God could say, you
made the mistake, you fix it. Yet, instead
we –again- demand of God, “Help us return to You.” Yes, it’s our fault but you can’t, you simply
can’t abandon us. Why not? After all, it seems God can do anything God
wants. The answer is, You just can’t. You simply can’t. God, we have a brit and you cannot abandon
us.

I love this approach to God because it
works in so many ways. For those who
believe in a very personal God it contains an expectation of intimacy. Yes, of course, one must be respectful of God
but one must not be so awestruck as to lose one’s way, to lose the ability to
speak and advocate and insist, demand, remind God that the brit, the covenant
we share is a two-way street. We will be
your people and you will be our God but that has a few requirements, saith us.

For those who struggle with belief in
such an immanent God, this insistence offers an intellectual understanding of
how Jews over the ages have seen God and that viewpoint is not one of
irrational and foolish fear; it is not a belief based in terror of an imaginary
being. It is a belief in a God who works
with us, who listens to us, who does not expect silent submission. It’s a more vigorous relationship than often imagined
and dismissed.

For those who struggle with faith, fall
upon the old chestnut that God is inside our selves and struggle with your soul
to be both more repentant for and more forgiving of your actions.

After this struggle comes Ki Anu Amecha
v’Atah malkeinu, which we will sing in just a moment. “We are Your people, You are our ruler.” You have a role, I have a role. And your role is harder. Leadership is hard, responsibility is
hard. Caring for so many is hard. It is much harder, much more difficult to be
the shepherd than it is to be the sheep.
But that is how it is. You, God,
offered this covenant. You knew the
terms of this agreement and you accepted it.
And now, as we gather here on this Day of Atonement, we are doing the
hard work of trying to change and we hold you accountable to do your part. We are doing our best so get ready to
atone. That is the brit, that is the
covenant, that is your job. And so we
sing Ki Anu Amecha with a full voice just
to add a little reminder.

And how does this play out for us? What is the effect of Ki Anu Amecha on our
psyches? We remember we are not the
center of the world. We are not the ones
in charge. We are part of something
larger than ourselves. We are not the
shepherd, we are not the vintner, we are not the creator. We are just one of many sheep, one of many
vines, one of many creations. We are
each infinitely valuable but also one among millions. We are unique but then again, truly, just
part of the masses. Each one of us is
but one grape amongst the rolling hills of the vineyard. We are not the center of the world.

I’ve been wondering if we’ve forgotten
that idea lately. We’ve seen degradation
in civility in what used to pass for reasoned conversations and political
debate. The Iran nuclear agreement is
one area where Jews turned on Jews to a very concerning way. Yes, the stakes are high but the screaming
and accusations and name calling has found a new low. I’m not a prude over a little political
theater in the service of advocacy.
That’s nothing new. But we saw
not advocacy but anger, accusations and assumptions that we were right and
anyone who disagrees is wrong and an idiot.
Everyone is either Neville Chamberlain or a warmonger. Everyone is a
traitor. Everyone is leading the Jewish
people to destruction. No one really
listens to each other. We yell at each
other.

It’s amazing how such a complicated
agreement could be understood so intimately by so many, so quickly that they
feel free to demonize –not just disagree or refute but demonize- the
other.

This happens when we are the center of
the world. This happens when we think
that this grape is truly the better grape.
Gone is discussion, gone is learning, gone is reason and reasonable
discourse.

I love the Kol Yisrael project but one of
the problems I see is that with imperfect knowledge, people feel free to trash
some decision or mock some issue or grandstand about this or that. It’s easy to do that. Some people take pleasure in it, but it also
means that the gossiper feels he is the center of the universe, that she
doesn’t need to discover more info, that they don’t need to consider anyone
else. Gossip leads to half-knowledge,
unnecessary drama, roiled feelings and distractions that keep us from making
good, smart plans. Gossip and
half-truths get in the way of clear thinking.
They cause hurt feelings when none need to be hurt. They drain us of the energy so many put into
this project.

I know gossip is a worldwide phenomenon
but can we try to control it at least in our small corner? Yom Kippur doesn’t imagine a perfect
world. Indeed we recite merely some of
the long list of sins that exist out there.
Yom Kippur knows the way of the world.
But Yom Kippur calls us to make ourselves better. Maybe just this corner of the world could be
better. Maybe the rest of the world will
be mean to each other but we, here, we will resist the trend and we will treat
each other nicely, respectfully.

Maybe, as we have expectations as to how
God must treat us, we should implore each other to treat us with more respect.

We are a pushy people. We have been since Abraham talked back to
God. We don’t take things sitting down but
we should come to that advocacy with some humility. We can say:
I do have issues I need addressed, I do have things to discuss, I do
have concerns and sometimes I am frustrated.
So who can I talk to about this?
That’s a better answer than a gossipy soapbox.

Shema Koleinu is about us demanding God
to treat us with the respect we deserve as people who are trying our best. Shouldn’t we demand that of each other, to
demand that we knock off the mean-spiritedness and come to each other with
respect and care and, dare I say, a basic love for another of God’s creations? We should.
And soon enough, after we demand of God and we demand of each other, we
will arrive at the vidui, the confession where we will own up to our own sins,
our own gossiping, our own degradation of civility. We’ll get there soon enough and we will beat
our chest and feel the self-flagellation and know we can do better. But for now, we need help so we turn to God
demanding that God help us be the best we can be.

We are not the center of the world. We need help.
We are merely the vines in a vineyard.
You are the vintner. But with
your help, what a thing we can create.
What a world we can make.

Ten days ago I
spoke to you about our community spirit.
Rosh Hashana is, after all, a festive day, a happy day of us coming
together to celebrate a new year. Tonight,
as we enter the more individually introspective Yom Kippur, I want to talk
about something more individual.

Let’s talk
about… juice glasses. When I was a kid,
we had, more or less, two types of juice glasses: the ones we loved and the
ones we wouldn’t touch. The ones we
loved were Welch’s grape jelly jars.
They had cartoon figures on the outside and as soon as we could finish
the jelly the glass jar was ready for drinking. The dishwasher slowly faded the colors but we
didn’t care. A jelly jar that was a
juice glass. That was so cool.

Then there were
the other juice glasses that we did not like.
These were squat little things that held just a few ounces. They, too, were repurposed but these had held
not jelly but wax. Specifically, a candle. More specifically, a yartzeit candle.

Yartzeit is
Yiddish for “year’s time.” It is an
anniversary. In this case, the
anniversary of a death. Jews were never
big on birthdays but we have a finely honed ritual for death dates. There are five times one lights a
candle. On the yartzeit date itself, and
then the four dates we have Yizkor services.
Those are today, Yom Kippur, the last day of Sukkot, the last day of
Pesach and the day of Shavuot. The
candle is lit on the evening the day before as the Hebrew date begins. That would be tonight. The candle burns for 24 hours so it had to be
big enough to hold all that wax and inside a flame proof container, hence the
size of a juice glass.

There is no
prayer said when lighting a yartzeit candle but it is a nice time for
reflection, a moment of remembrance. You
light yartzeit candles for siblings, spouse, parents, child although many
people light just for parents and spouses and when needed, children. Some people have a candle for each person but
many people have one candle to remember multiple people. Either custom is fine.

Afterwards, the
container can be thrown out or used for juice glasses. Honestly, it’s just a glass. It held a yartzeit candle, sure, but
halachically, it’s just a glass. You could
do anything with them and that’s why people used them for drinking
glasses. But my brothers and I were having
none of that. We knew that something
important had taken place over these glasses.
It wasn’t just that we were remembering dead people. It wasn’t just that. It was that these yartzeit juice glasses were
present for a whole ritual. It got taken
out of the special cabinet where a half dozen sat at the ready. It was set up on a plate in the middle of the
stove-top as extra fire protection. It was
lit with intention and a serious pause.
A very serious pause. In my
Bubbie’s house, the candle was my great-grandmother and great-grandfather. In my mother’s house it was my Bubbie and
Zaide. These juice glasses, handed down
–nothing should go to waste- represented the lives of people and more importantly
they represented remembering the
lives of people. Lighting the yartzeit
candle meant that attention had been paid. Lighting the yartzeit candle meant
that names were recalled, good times recalled, fondness recalled, love
recalled. For twenty-four hours anytime
we walked into the kitchen, past the kitchen, through the kitchen we knew that
remembrance was taking place. Actually,
it was nice. It was nice to know
remembrance was taking place. It’s a bit
sad but it’s nice.

Often, when I
meet to discuss a funeral, families tell me, “We want it to be a celebration of
life.” One time at a different synagogue,
the family told me they didn’t want the funeral to be sad. I wasn’t sure how to have a funeral not be
sad. Then they explained they wanted a
“celebration of life.” I hear this idea
not infrequently. They want a
“celebration of life.”

First of all,
what do they think a Jewish funeral is?
Do they think we just meditate on the nature of death? Of course, not. We share stories and tell tales and remember
our loved ones as they lived. We recall
their triumphs and we acknowledge, with gentleness, their shortcomings. We, dare I say, celebrate their life. And that is what yartzeit candles are for as
well. They are not there to ruminate on
death. They are there to remind us to
celebrate the person’s life.

Why has Judaism
not developed a culture of celebrating birthdays but has a ritual for
anniversaries of death? Because another
birthday is another challenge to make something of the next year. A birthday is the understanding that a year
of hard work is about to take place.
Work, study, relationships, growth, raising children, caring for
parents. The next year will be another
challenge. No child ever ruminated on
the passing of age nine. No! They excitedly talk about being ten! And should that not be the case? The secular notion of a birthday is a
celebration looking forward. A parent may
celebrate looking back at that crazy day of birth, birthdays ending in zeroes
may cause a brief reflection but really, other than that, what does a birthday
celebrate? It celebrates passage of time
but let’s be clear a birthday isn’t a celebration of life because you’re not
yet done with that life.

The yartzeit is
the true celebration of life. The
yartzeit is the moment to look back. The
person’s life is done. How did he do? Where did she succeed? Did they make something of their life? And most often the answer is yes and we
celebrate that. The yartzeit may take
place on the date of death but its purpose is to gaze at the person’s
life. The yartzeit is the place to
remember and recall with fondness all that our loved ones did with their lives.

And when we
have yizkor on those four dates, yes, of course, it’s sad but what’s wrong with
a little sadness? What’s wrong with a
little weeping for the people we loved?
It’s okay to be melancholy. The
point is to take a moment, give yourselves over to the ritual and just take a
moment to remember. In a busy world with
our busy lives, our heritage, your heritage gives you a pause, a time out, a
chance to breathe in, say a prayer and remember. Four times a year, no, five even, we remember
and we celebrate life.

There is a kabbalistic
idea behind those candles and wannabe juice glasses. The wax represents our bodies. The flame, the best part of a candle, ever
reaching upwards, is the soul. The flame
always reaches toward heaven, always tries to aim higher. The flame wants nothing more than to go up
and up and up but it is tied down here by the wax, the source of its
energy. Our bodies are wax, living for
just a finite time but they give energy to our souls and they allow our souls
to be seen and touched while here on Earth.
When the wax is gone, the flame goes out but the energy of that flame
lives on forever. The body fades, the
body dies but the soul lives on in our hearts, in our actions and in the
heavens forever. When we light that
candle, we remember that precious soul and we celebrate that life. That is what the candle is for. That is what our yizkor service is for. It’s a lovely moment.

But you don’t
come. I don’t know how many light
candles at home but our yizkor services are very poorly attended and even
yizkor on Yom Kippur is not as full as it should be considering it is a lovely,
poignant, quiet reflective moment.

I suspect I
know why yizkor is poorly attended over the year. Two reasons, really. There was a tradition that children shouldn’t
attend yizkor services even adult children.
Some say they wanted to spare the children the sight of parents
crying. Some say it would tempt the evil
eye to cause the parents to die in the coming year. Whatever reason, children didn’t grow up
understanding what yizkor services were and so when it came time for them to
go, it wasn’t something they were familiar with.

Another reason
is that yizkor is part of the liturgy for the holiday and many people don’t
liturgy.

What can I
say? I like liturgy. It tells a story. There is a mantra like effect in its
repetition but perhaps I’ll try to convince you of that another day. For now, let me meet you where you are.

Over the last
year, Cantor Amy and I have experimented with highlighting the poignant aspect
of yizkor and diminishing the surrounding tefillot. We’re going to keep doing that to find out
the best way to create a reflective moment that succeeds. Come experience what we are putting together
and let us know what you think.

The climax of
yizkor is mourner’s kaddish. That prayer
runs interference for the deceased’s soul in heaven. The root for prayer in Hebrew isפלל. It has the sense of interference. Prayer interferes, as it were, with God. When we say prayers we use them as
intercessors, something to reach out to beseech and prod God. There is a classic understanding that upon
death, God judges the soul of the deceased and saying the kaddish prayer interferes
with the judgment by softening the judgment.
Saying kaddish the first year after a death of a parent was crucial
because for thousands of years, we’ve understood that power of prayer as
literally having an impact upon God and many still believe that but for us in
the rational tinged Reform Movement, we may have lost that understanding.

Let me, then, bring in a different type of interference. Perhaps we can reinvigorate a tradition that
will interfere with your daily life, something that breaks up the months so
that three times, in the fall, the spring, the summer at the end of Sukkot, the
end of Pesach, the end of Shavuot, we can interrupt our rhythm and use it as a
time to remember those who came before us.
We don’t often get that chance.
Let’s see if we can do that, together.
Let’s remember together. Let’s
come together as a community to support each other as we remember. Let’s not let the years roll on without
stopping to pause and remember. Let’s
mark our calendars and add a flow to our year and light a candle in our
kitchens. I know that people can and do
remember all the time but there is something different about having special
moments set aside where we all share the same experience together.

To help you do that, outside I have candles for you to take home. I hope you’ll join me in remembering our
loved ones and adding, perhaps, a new tradition to your home. I know this will be hard for many of
you. Embracing an old tradition that is
new to you is difficult. It will feel
foreign. It will feel inauthentic. To this I say, just give it a chance. You are allowed to add to your repertoire of Jewish
living at any age. You are entitled to
recapture the custom of your Bubbie and Zaide.
You are entitled to add something new to your Jewish home. Rekindle the custom of yartzeit candles and
start tonight.

We have 200 candles outside, enough, I think, for a couple per household. Light them tonight and take a moment to
remember the best of the people you are remembering as you celebrate their
lives.